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(Reuters) – The Japanese government will set rules for trading bitcoin, including imposing taxes on transactions with the virtual currency, that will become the basis for guidelines applicable to similar currencies in future, the Nikkei reported. Japans government is still trying to explain the collapse of Mt. Gox – once the worlds once largest bitcoin exchange – and figure out how the Tokyo-based company could lose nearly half a billion dollars in bitcoins, Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday. Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan on Friday, saying it may have lost some 850,000 bitcoins due to hacking into its faulty computer system. The guidelines proposed by the Japanese cabinet will call for taxing bitcoin transactions, defining the virtual currency as a commodity rather than a currency, the Nikkei said.